SUMMER SEVENTEEN XXII

NEXT DAY TIFFANY and I take the small motorboat to Edgartown without permission.

                Taeyeon and Minho don’t want to come. They are going kayaking

                I drive and Tiffany trails her hand in the wake.

                Tiffany isn’t wearing much today: a daisy-print bikini top and a denim miniskirt. She walks down the cobblestone sidewalks of Edgartown talking about Nick and how it feels to have “ual ” with him. That’s what she calls it every time; her answer about how it feels has to do with the scent of the beach roses mixed with roller coasters and fireworks.

                She also talks about what clothes she wants to buy for freshman year at Pomona and movies she wants to see and projects she wants to do this summer, like find a place on the Vineyard to ride horses and start making ice cream again. Honestly, she doesn’t stop chattering for half an hour.

                I wish I had her life. A boyfriend, plans, college in California. Tiffany is going off into her sunshine future, whereas I am going back to Dickinson Academy to another year of snow and suffocation.

                I buy a small bag of fudge at Murdick’s, even though there’s some left from yesterday. We sit on a shady bench, Tiffany still talking.

                Another memory comes.

SUMMER FIFTEEN, TIFFANY sat next to Soo and Hyo on the steps of our favorite Edgartown clam shack. The boys had plastic rainbow pinwheels. Soo’s face was smeared with fudge, he’d eaten earlier. We were waiting for Bess, because she had Tiffany’s shoes. We couldn’t go indoors without them.

                Tiffany’s feet were dirty and her toenails were painted blue.

                We had been waiting a while when Taeyeon came out of the shop down the block. She had a stack of books under her arm. She ran toward us at top speed, as if in a ridiculous hurry to catch us, even though we were sitting still.

                Then she stopped short. The book on top was Being and Nothingness by Sartre. She still had the words written on the back of her hands. A recommendation from Grandad.

                Taeyeon bowed, foolishly, clownishly, and presented me with the book at the bottom of the pile: it was a novel by Jaclyn Moriarty. I’d been reading her all summer.

                I opened the book to the title page. It was inscribed. For Jessica with everything, everything. Taeyeon.

“I REMEMBER WAITING for your shoes so we could go into the clam shack,” I tell Tiffany. She has stopped talking now and looks at me expectantly. “Pinwheels,” I say. “Tae giving me a book.”

                “So your memories are coming back,” Tiffany says. “That’s great!”

                “The aunties fought about the estate.”

                She shrugs. “A bit.”

                “And Grandad and I, we had this argument about his ivory statues.”

                “Yeah. We walked about it at the time.”

                “Tell me something.”

                “What?”

                “Why did Tae disappear after my accident?”

                Tiffany twists a strand of her hair. “I don’t know.”

                “Did she go back with her boyfriend?”

                “I don’t know.”

                “Did we fight? Did I do something wrong?”

                “I don’t know, Jessi.”

                “She got upset at me a few nights back. About not knowing the names of the staff. About not having seen her apartment in New York.”

                There is a silence. “She has good reasons to be mad,” says Tiffany finally.

                “What did I do?”

                Tiffany sighs. “You can’t fix it.”

                “Why not?”         

                Suddenly Tiffany starts choking. Gagging, like she might vomit. Bending over at the waist, her skin damp and pale.

                “You okay?”

                “No.”

                “Can I help?”

                She doesn’t answer.

                I offer her a bottle of water. She takes it. Drinks slowly. “I did too much. I need to get back to Cuddledown. Now.”

                Her eyes are glassy. I hold out my hand. Her skin feels wet and she seems unsteady on her feet. We walk in silence to the harbour where the small motorboat is docked.

MUMMY NEVER NOTICED the motorboat was missing, but she sees the bag of fudge when I give it to Soo and Hyo.

                On and on, natter natter. Her lecture isn’t interesting.

                I may not leave the island without her permission.

                I may not leave the island without adult supervision.

                I may not operate a motor vehicle on medication.

                I can’t be as stupid as I’m acting, can I?

                I say the “Sorry” my mother wants to hear. Then I run down to Windemere and write everything I remembered – the clam shack, the pinwheel, Tiffany’s dirty feet on the wooden steps, the book Taeyeon gave me – on the graph paper above my bed.

Why is Tiffany getting sicker?